Info Days and Nerd Rage

Title may be a bit misleading but you know what? I don't care. Both will be part of this post its just the nerd rage is not my own. As we all know and have seen (well those of us that keep up with WoW news like a broke crack-head stalks his dealer when he says he's out) probable class changes have been announced for all classes but Paladins. And while Ty is pacing outside waiting for her turn to see what knew shines she gets the Ed has a few things she wants to comment on. That's right kids, its time for Ed drools over hunter goodness.

Lets start with the new buttons that will be filling up more bar space I don't have. At 81 us hunters will be getting Cobra shot, which is a nature based shot and shares a cool down with steady shot. At 83 they will toss Trap Launcher at us (see what I did there?) that will take the place of the current frost arrow and work with all traps. Finally at the cap we will get a tasty skill called Camouflage that will make us unable to be attacked by ranged attack and give us an attack bonus when we attack from it.

Now starting with Cobra shot this shot is making your dear Edy drool on herself a bit. From what I've read this shot is the shot they are aiming to make the Beast Mastery signature shot though all specs will have it. Beast Mastery will have something in tree to make the shot more appealing to us to the point it completely replaces steady shot. Kinda like how Explosive shot and arcane shot work for Survival hunters. Whats this mean to me? Well for one it makes me a happy Edy. Not because its going to be a huge DPS increase or something of the sort but simply because its something new and fresh to add flavor to a spec I already love. Beast Mastery has always been about the pet but all specs have pets so it will be nice to have a hunter shot tailored to the hunter rather than the pet in a spec that was beginning to suffer a handicap from so many pet buffs, nerfs, and scaling problems as it was.

As for Trap Launcher I have one thing to say. Flying snakes. I have needed a reason to randomly yell "eat snakes beeotch" again and well Blizzard seems to have heard my cry. Now if they would just make the damn snakes worth something again...

Camouflage. Well I am a little up in the air about this one. The words that describe it sound good and all but I wont know how I feel about the skill until I see just how useful it is. I mean I can't get super excited by every spell they give us.

With the spells out the way lets get to the meat of things, the over all class mechanic changes:

Mana goes byebye.
I am BEYOND happy to see this is getting closer to the live servers. Mana is a pain for hunters even with our in class regeneration skills. We burn it in seconds and are stuck with juggling aspect of the viper to regain enough to burn again many times over in a fight (though I will be fair and say its more a problem in raiding situations and leveling than any other time) unless we have mana regen in the party buffs or are specced for the mana regen in Survival. We aren't really set up to benefit from mp5. Though to be honest my biggest gripe with mana is the fact that it really doesn't fit the class itself. Hunters are weird. Our attacks are physical. If I were to get silenced you know what it would do? Stop me from rezzing or healing my pet. That's it. I can still shoot you with all my shots and stings. I can still do my defensive stuff. I think I still drop traps (not something I do a lot of in silenced situations so don't string me up for not being certain on this one at 1AM). So other than things I may or may not need to do to my pet what exactly is it that makes me as a hunter a magic user? Yes I know I am a blood elf in game but their are rogues and soon to be warriors in my race. Magic is not a must so I wont advocate for keeping it just because of that. Focus might seem scary now to most hunters but I'm totally ready to try it out. True it will take some getting use to but what changes don't? Ty was worried about the ret pally's loss of intellect on dps plate but those mechanics worked out just fine. So I figure why fret over it until I see something about how its working on the test realms.

Ammo is no more.
I may need new pants the day I see my quiver filled with formerly useful arrows just waiting to be sold to the vendor and a quiver that at that point will turn into a 28 slot bag than only hunters can use. I can hear the QQ now from engineers on their lost gold income and everybody else about the bag but you know what? Edy don't give a damn. I don't see how paying 3 to 10 gold per 1000 arrows that I absolutely have to have to function in my class is fair. Does having a pet mean I have to pay more than the rest of my raiding group just to do my job? Yes other classes need things like poisons and seal of kings to do part of their job in a raid but does that cost them as much as it does a hunter? Can a rogue still not attack a target if they forget to buy poison? Why yes they can. A hunter cant. Best we can do is be a warm body to fill a spot until you find somebody that can attack and actually DO real damage. Can a paladin still buff without seal of kings? Of course they can. Just would take an hour to do one by one but it can still be done. Not like you have to have the blessing to function as a class. Now even take into account hunters use two different types of ammunition in arrows and bullets. You cant fire a gun with bullets and vice versa. That's a lot of extra cash from a class just to be able to function. Now am I saying I am completely thrilled to see ammo go? Well yes and no. While they can't take the cost out of the game fast enough I am a bit sad they are just taking it away all together instead of giving us some sort of ammo item that worked like a regular piece of gear (I was never fond of the elemental arrow items idea myself but it was an interesting one) and could have done cool things. But once I sat down and actually thought about it the removal seems the most logical way to deal with the problem of ammo. Also hunters wont be the only ones to benefit from not having to carry ammo around. Sucks the other classes that can use bows and guns wont be able to keep the a quiver or ammo pouch as a bag. That last thing sounded sincere yes?

Gotta catch em all.
More pet storage makes me beyond happy. The current five slots are nice (I remember three and cant imagine what hell it was to have less than that) but with all the cool pets they keep adding you just don't want to have to give up something you really like just to get and try something new. So as it stands hunters will be able to have 3 active pets with them in call stable at all times and several more in reserve that can be switched with the active ones at a stable keeper. I am a collector by nature so the thought of getting pets based on looks and tossing them in the reserves CAUSE I CAN is like putting me on cloud nine. Some pets are also getting their debuffs/buffs reworked so hunters can bring more utility when taking pets into party situations. This is something I also can't wait to see how it works for myself. I have snuggles and as far as I am concerned he is all I need. Still the possibilities....

Pet from level 1.
Now this is an interesting change for the class. I feel a little mixed about this. Not so much because its making the game easier but more because I wish they had this when Edy first picked up her bow. Getting to level 10 as a fresh wower is a bit overwhelming to get used to. You also play for 10 levels in a manner that really doesn't fit the way Blizzard wants the class to work. Now purest (A.K.A. old grumpy bastards that cant let anybody else have fun) say those levels teach us how to kite. Lets be honest here. I cant speak for everybody but I know I did my share of melee when I first got my account and thought nothing of it. Hunters have ranged AND melee weapons. Why would somebody in the game know that they shouldn't stand there and whack away at the thing they shot to get its attention. I did pick up on kiting fairly quickly after getting tired of getting chewed on but I am a gamer and have been for years. Problem solving is one of the things I enjoy when I game. That in no way means the person that doesn't think "I need to kite" when they are getting chewed on is stupid. It just means they play differently. A pet from level one isn't going to dramatically change the number of hunters that don't know how to kite. When you pull aggro off your pet you learn real quick to run away and shoot it to let your pet get aggro back. All level one pets are going to do is help people have more fun when they role a new toon and start seeing what the game is about. Also will stop a lot of bitching (myself included) from hunter addicts that like to roll a new one from time to time then remember how bad it sucked getting to level 10 without a pet.

Emphasis on ranged.
Yeah hunters are ranged. Blizzard says we dont want you whacking on things all willy nilly since some of us don't seem to understand we don't really hurt things like that. So mongoose bite is going bye bye for sure and who knows what they will do about our dead zone or if we will be able to still whack on things at all. Unless they say we cant use melee weapons for stats I really won waste my time thinking about this one.

Everything else you can read on your own since they are just stat things that I don't have to wait my breath on.

Now as you can see I am far from the "we are doomed" camp about changes and I tend to be pretty open to whatever Blizzard wants to try as long as its fun and keeps the feel of the class/spec. In fact crying over something that's months away kinda irritates me. If you don't like a change don't nerd rage about it and don't just assume its going to kill your class. Blizzard may get things wrong but you have to think about information like this as a chance to make yourself heard to the company in an open forum to say "have you thought about maybe not doing this or X doesn't sound like something that's a great idea". They have proven they do listen when we speak sometimes and are probably more likely to listen when peoples aren't yelling how they suck without explaining why. Things will change between now and the time I get to get my hands on the expansion or the patch with the class changes. You won't see me flip out about the changes and rage away (my rage is special and can not be used without good reason). I want to see the game I love get better and become more fun. If a change is coming I will wait and see what it does. If I don't like it...well maybe its time I find something else to do with my free time.

Edy has spoke.